We all know Vice President Joe Biden as the street smart, wisecracking, blue-collared right hand of President Barack Obama. We all know the well-worn public persona: the dedicated family man who spent four hours a day during his Senate tenure shlepping to and from Wilmington, Delaware to be with his offspring, instead of shacking up with a group of fellow politicos in a deluxe Georgetown brownstone, going home on alternate weekends to gladhand with campaign donors. And yes, we all know Joe Biden as the GILF fantasy of women from Bangor to Bangalore, and probably in Europe, too. He’s approachable, he’s funny, he’s smart, he drives a white Trans Am, and he’s dead sexy. He’s Joe Biden.

Because Americans aren’t anxious enough forced to digest anemic monthly jobs numbers, an economy teetering on the precipice, the steady stream of illegal home foreclosures, a Democratic President poised to shiv Social Security and Medicare, and the country’s insidious metamorphosis into a security state, they also have to worry about something so basic as the right to vote. That’s because über-bully Karl Rove, not content to have put the Dauphin of Dumbfuckistan in the White House, decided that controlling the Executive Branch wasn’t enough. Like his Machiavellian comrade and patron, Charles Koch, he “want[ed] his fair share–and that’s all of it.” Hey, if that means depriving American citizens of their civil rights, well, so be it. There are always going to be winners and losers, amirite? Whaddya gonna do about it?

Because Americans aren’t anxious enough, forced to digest anemic monthly jobs numbers, an economy teetering on the precipice, the steady stream of illegal home foreclosures, a Democratic President poised to shiv Social Security and Medicare, and the country’s insidious metamorphosis into a security state, they also have to worry about something so basic as the right to vote. That’s because über-bully Karl Rove, not content to have put the Dauphin of Dumbfuckistan in the White House, decided that controlling the Executive Branch wasn’t enough. Like his Machievellian comrade and patron, Charles Koch, he “want[ed] his fair share–and that’s all of it.” Hey, if that means depriving American citizens of their civil rights, well, so be it. There are always going to be winners and losers, amirite? Whaddya gonna do about it?

It’s July 1, 2012. We’re rapidly approaching the fourth anniversary of the murder of the American middle class, the Dark Times when our corporate-controlled government, draped in the disguise of democracy, announced in (allegedly) Willie Sutton fashion, that the only way to save the country from financial ruin was to transfer all of our life savings into the offshore bank accounts of the 1%-ers like Jamie “Diamonds” Dimon, Lloyd “Blank Check” Blankfein, Vikram “the Bandit” Pandit, and Ken “Platinum Parachute” Lewis. Distracted by the presidential election circus of 2008, the American citizenry sat passively by as BushCo, having already looted the U.S. Treasury to pay for the administration’s Iraq Follies, decided now that they had gotten theirs, it was the banksters’ turn. The country was forced to watch, locked out of their bank-foreclosed homes as the government rehabilitated these murderers, this time by robbing from the private sector.

Welcome Lee Papa, and Host, Watertiger. [As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book. Please take other conversations to a previous thread. – bev] The Rude Pundit’s Almanack Watertiger, Host: On September 29, 2003, several months after the launch of the Idiot King’s Great Debacle, a

On September 29, 2003, several months after the launch of the Idiot King’s Great Debacle, a fresh, loud and rather impudent voice interrupted the hand-wringing fatalism infecting the left side of the blogosphere. Lee Papa, better known to the world as The Rude Pundit, had arrived to give our rage ventilation and civility the finger. His manifesto reads in part:

The Rude Pundit is left. You are wrong.

The Rude Pundit owes you nothing. He is free from all obligations. Unlike you, he can say whatever he wants. He will always speak the truth. He will always try to make you uncomfortable.

The Rude Pundit knows that the majority of the country believes in liberal policies. They just don’t know it. Yet.

The Rude Pundit believes that the reason the left has failed to get an open following is that it has allowed rudeness to become the language of the right. Thomas Paine was rude. W.E.B. DuBois was rude. Abbie Hoffman was rude. The Rude Pundit could list more people, but he doesn’t want to waste time on your history lesson. Go read a fucking book.

The Rude Pundit takes no prisoners. If something pisses him off, he lets you know in certain and often x-rated terms. He delights in taunting the “civility” trolls, prudes who blush at his exotic prose and dismiss his foul-mouthed arguments as unserious, probably because they (1) hate that he’s right and (2) are secretly turned on by him. Amidst the gray tut-tutting of the “sensible” pundits and bloggers, Lee’s posts are a rainbow of neon lights.

I went to the Wisconsin Solidarity rally this morning at City Hall. VERY nice turnout. Irony! Not if the Governors of the Apocalypse have their way… Yes we CAN! Rep. Anthony “The Scrapper” Weiner rallied the crowd. . . . . . as did Rep. Jerry Nadler. . . .

Hey, kids. I’m representing FDL at the WGAE Awards tonight. Very exciting. The Writers Guild of America represents writers in motion pictures, televisino, cable, digita media, and broadcast news. Just as important, it is the voice of these artists at the legislative level. Tonight, the WGAE is working in tandem